Alan brought the epilogue to tonight’s family service. He commented on how many of the kings were a mixture of good and bad: Saul started well, prophesying and seeking God, but fell into sin because he wanted to please the people and he did not fully obey God’s commands. David committed adultery and conspired to murder, but he also led Israel bravely and was willing to repent when he did wrong. His influence remains to this day through the psalms he wrote.HIs son, Solomon, started well and his wisdom is seen in the book of Proverbs, for example, but his foreign wives led his heart astray. The subsequent division of the kingdom was bound to end in trouble, for as Jesus commented, ‘a house divided against itself cannot stand.’ (Mk 3:25)
In English history, we have had a number of good kings and bad kings, good queens and bad queens. Henry VIII is probably most famous for his six wives and it was his divorce from Catherine of Aragon in order to marry Anne Boleyn which led to the break with the Catholic church and his establishment as head of the Church of England, the ‘defender of the faith’, a title Queen Elizabeth II still holds. For our present queen – the longest serving monarch in British history – her role as queen under God has been the guiding principle of her life.
For all of us who own Jesus Christ as Lord, we acknowledge Him as the ‘King of Kings and Lord of Lords’ (Rev 19:16), the One who deserves our whole-hearted allegiance, devotion and submission. In the words of Chris Tomlin’s song, ‘We fall down; we lay our crowns at the feet of Jesus’. (‘We Fall Down’)